MP Yvan Baker delivered speech on 2026 Falun Dafa Day celebration in Ottawa

Order my MP, Mr Yvonne Baker, who is ceaseless encouragement and involvement has made a meaningful difference to our community year after year. Everyone please welcome Member of Parliament Yvonne Baker. Hello everybody, can you hear me okay? Yeah? So my name is Yvonne Baker and I'm the Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre, which is a suburban community in the western part of the City of Toronto, near Pearson Airport. And it's an honour to be here with all of you here today and I want to welcome you all to Parliament here, Parliament Hill again. And I say again because I've had the privilege of attending this celebration with you year after year now. I think every year that I've been a Member of Parliament, I think I've been here. But my roots and my connection to your community go back much further than that. In fact, many years ago, back in 2004, I began to work for a Member of Parliament in Etobicoke. And one of the first phone calls I got was from Joel Chipgard, who shared with me, introduced me to Falun Dafa, introduced me to the challenges that you're facing and to the support that you need, but also your contribution to Canada. And so since then I've felt like we've had a relationship, not just with Joel, but with members of your community. And so I'm proud to be here again this year with all of you. Falun Dafa, which is also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual meditation based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. And these are indeed values that we all cherish and we all honour. And I share that because I don't need to tell you, you know more than I do. But I think it's important that we share it for the broader group of folks who are, whether watching on television or listening to us or our guests here today, that they understand what Falun Gong and what Falun Dafa is all about. Now, we cherish these values, but in Canada we also cherish our human rights and we enshrine protections for human rights in our Charter of Rights. And as Canadians, especially as elected officials, it's important that we stand up for those rights. And for your beliefs, for their beliefs, Falun Dafa practitioners continue to be the victims of persecution. And as elected officials, and I think indeed as Canadians, it's important that we stand for those rights, stand up in defence of those rights and fundamental freedom. And recently we've seen threats against Shen Yu performances. And not only the performers, but also the audiences who plan to attend those performances. That is, it's unacceptable, it's a crime in Canada and it has to stop. But we have to keep working to make sure that those threats stop. But I want to thank all of you for being here at Parliament Hill. For sharing your positive message with, not just with each other, but with all Canadians, with members of Parliament from all parts of the country. And I want to thank you for your contributions to Canada, because your contributions aren't just a day here at Parliament Hill, they're every day that we meet across the country. So I want to thank you very much for being here, it's an honour to be with you, and I look forward to celebrating with you year after year and working with you as well. Thank you very much for coming.